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By Rachel Sherman, MyMediaInfo
It seems like everywhere you turn someone is making the case for having a social media presence for your business, but keeping up with every new network out there is a pretty daunting task. You have to be selective because each one you engage with is a time and resource commitment. And when it really comes down to it, not every social network is right for every business. Even Facebook. So, how do you know which ones you need to be a part of to help meet your goals? Here are some things to consider as you plan your social media strategy for the coming year.
Who are you looking to engage with?
If your target audience is other businesses, investing your time and energy into a social network that is full of consumers may not be your best bet. Do your research to figure out if a particular social network is right for you. Use the search feature to dig around (search on keywords that are a good representation of your offerings) and get a sense of whether the people on the site are the people you want to reach.
How much time can you devote?
While the whole point of social networking is to be consistently engaged, some social networks can require more effort and attention than others. If you are selecting networks that require a constant watch or interaction, you’ll want to factor that in to your decision. Also, it’s important to think realistically about the sustainability of your effort. There’s nothing less social than getting to a page and seeing it hasn’t been updated for months or that it has been abandoned. More often than not, having no page is better than having a dated page so if you’re getting into a social media network make sure you have the resources to go all in.
What goals are you trying to meet?
It’s important to think about your goals and what you expect to get out of your social media participation. There are so many different reasons to build a social media presence. Perhaps you want to use it as an avenue for lead generation or you’d like to show your expertise and thought leadership in your field. Maybe you just want to show a different side your business and give an ‘insider’ look to your daily happenings. Whatever your reason for becoming part of the social media universe may be, there is a social network out there designed to fit your purpose.
Who are you representing?
While it can be tempting to combine our personal and professional selves on social media as a way of streamlining our lives, there’s a big caveat that comes along with doing so. Your professional contacts are probably not interested in the great deal you just scored on a new winter jacket or what you watched on television last night, and your friends and family might not want to hear the twelve biggest gripes public relations folks have with journalists. Know your audience, keep focused on delivering content that they are most interested in and make it a priority to add value to the community.
When it comes to social media, it’s always worth mentioning that once something is posted, it’s out. Even the ability to delete doesn’t ensure that what you’ve posted will disappear, so it’s always a good policy to read twice before you hit the post button. And most importantly, even though social media can be a great way to make new contacts and build your identity, keep in mind that it will never take the place of face-to-face, real-life networking. A smile and handshake trump tapping away at a keyboard every time.
With over 350,000 story opportunities for 2012 in MyEdCals, we’ve noticed a trend for the coming year with magazines dedicating pages to Corporate Social Responsibility. Over the last few months, the Occupy movement has opened up a national dialogue on how companies are making a positive impact on a social level, and based on the opportunities in MyEdCals, the topic will remain at the forefront over the next 12 months.
The top Corporate Social Responsibility story topics for 2012 are:
- Corporate Philanthropy
- Community Involvement
- Environmental Impact
Corporate Philanthropy – With political and social movements turning the microscope on corporate profits in the last months of 2011, corporate philanthropy will be a major focus in 2012. While many companies have long supported social causes quietly as part of their corporate mission, the coming year will likely bring these efforts to the forefront, and magazines will heavily feature content on the topic.
Community Involvement – Businesses are an important part of the communities within which they function, and how they engage with neighbors communicates a great deal about their commitment to corporate social responsibility. How companies are giving back on both a local and global scale will be a subject of great interest in 2012.
Environmental Impact – ‘Green’ has been a hot topic for the past few years, but the focus has been on personal and household impact on the ecosystem. Over the next twelve months, magazines will shift the attention from individual impact and move toward content that puts the spotlight on the way in which businesses operate to help promote a healthy environment.
The challenging economic climate seems to have heavily influenced what magazines will be writing about in the coming year, and Real Estate and Home topics will be getting a lot of attention in 2012. With the Real Estate market in tough shape and people putting off moving to stay put, there’s a lot of focus on home improvement, landscaping and decorating. Here are the top Real Estate and Home story topics for 2012.
- Gardens & Landscape
- Home Automation
- Design & Architecture
- Interiors & Decoration
- Home Improvement & Renovation
Gardens & Landscape – With a difficult real estate market persisting, homeowners are making improvements to their current home, starting with beautifying their outdoor space. For those looking to discover their green thumb or for people who are already experts, there will be numerous resources available to help them meet their goals with Gardens and Landscape proving to be a hot topic for the coming year.
Home Automation – It’s not just for the Jetson’s! As technology focuses on ways to make our everyday lives simpler and more comfortable, solutions that keep us in control of our homes while we’re away from home are being developed daily. In 2012, magazines will dedicate pages to advances that allow us to control everything from the lights in our living room to the temperature in our home, all from a remote device like a smartphone or computer.
Design & Architecture – Whether you see the home as the ultimate showpiece, are interested mainly in maximizing space and function, or just love to imagine your dream house, an amazing design is a necessity. With so many styles and sensibilities to pore over, it’s not a surprise that home design and architecture stories will get lots of attention over the next twelve months.
Interiors & Decoration – It’s the small touches and homey décor that make a house into a home, so it’s no surprise that stories about interiors and decoration rate high on magazine editorial calendars in the coming year. Focusing on making indoor living spaces attractive, comfortable and functional, is not only a fun and creative outlet, but is also a great and affordable way to change the look and feel of any room.
Home Improvement & Renovation – With people staying put in their homes during a tough real estate market, home improvement and renovation projects are an outlet for making changes big and small or for fixing things that have gone ignored for awhile. In 2012, magazines will offer plenty of stories about home improvement, all of which will likely be of great interest to the many intrepid do-it-yourself readers out there.
By Eric Hill, Co-Founder & President, MyMediaInfo
One of my favorite commercials is an AT&T commercial for their 4G LTE phone. Two guys are tailgating at a football game, sitting in their chairs, and are way ahead of everyone else because of the speed of their network and phone. Throughout AT&T’s 4G campaign, the overwhelming theme of speed of information is drilled home. From the office guy who sounds off that he wasn’t invited to the Taco party to the Flash Mob dancer that didn’t get the text to start an hour later, AT&T is pushing speed.
In the business world and especially in my own world, speed and accuracy of information is extremely important. However, in our never-ending quest to share, learn and gain new knowledge through technology, we’re sometimes too distracted to understand the whole story and learn some great life lessons. I wanted to share a personal story that inspires me when I think I am having a rough day. This is the story of Joe Lee, my Father-in-Law.
At 14, Joe was forced to leave his homeland and move to America. Joe’s family was in dire straits and if he couldn’t provide for his mother and sister, as well as his aunt and two cousins, they may have died. So Joe got on a boat, alone, and traveled thousands of miles to a land where he didn’t speak the language and hardly knew a soul.
Joe didn’t complain, but instead did exactly what he had to do. He forfeited his childhood for his family’s survival. He worked tirelessly in a laundromat, always sacrificing everything but the most basic needs so he could send money home to his family. After many years in the US, Joe was able to get married and have 5 beautiful daughters, but life was still difficult for him. Even though the Army rejected him due to his flat feet, he would work 12-15 hours a day as a cook, bartender or waiter to feed his growing family. Tragedy struck when Joe’s wife, May, died from cancer, when their youngest daughter was only a few years old. Joe’s mother left her homeland, never to return, for the US to raise five girls she never met. After all, it was Joe who did the same many years earlier for her.
 Joe married again a few years later. Two more children, a girl and boy, were added to the ever growing clan. Joe raised the kids with a heavy hand but it was the only way he knew how. They lived in one of the worst parts of the city. So bad that the kids would have to step over drug addicts sleeping on their front steps to enter their building.
Despite the daily temptations outside their doors, Joe’s kids grew into amazing adults. All seven of them went to college and on to enjoy productive careers. And ten grandchildren followed.
Two weeks ago we took Joe to the Emergency Room for the last time. He was 86. Joe knew it was his time, and he was okay with it. He would say that he wasn’t a smart man, and then we would remind him of how he had such great children and a big smile would come across his face. He would then look at some of his youngest grandchildren and time enabled him to say the words to them that he had always felt for all of his kids, “Grandpa loves you. Grandpa loves you.”
Can you imagine a 14 year old doing this in today’s world? Not only sacrificing his childhood, but being selfless enough to provide for two families. One of Joe’s daughters wrote a tribute to her Dad, “To Baba, whose favorite holiday was Thanksgiving, and his last wish was for his family to be together.” Once Joe was sure that all seven of his kids were together on Thanksgiving, he took his last breath. I will always carry the memory of a man who sacrificed everything to ensure his family would stay together.
The end of the calendar year always brings lots of lists that look back on the last twelve months, but we like to keep looking forward to the future. In that spirit, we’ve combed MyEdCals to find the most popular editorial calendar topics for 2012. Lifestyles came up with big numbers, so we dug deeper to see which topics within the lifestyles category are going to get lots of attention in the coming year. Here’s what we found.
The top lifestyles stories for 2012 are:
- Fashion
- Healthcare
- Beauty & Personal Care
- Vacations & Travel
- Shopping
Fashion – Taking the top spot for another year, fashion is a hot topic that continues to dominate the pages of magazines. While many publications have struggled with profitability and relevancy over the past year, fashion remains a proven winner when it comes to editorial content.
Healthcare – From diet, nutrition and exercise to disease prevention and doctor selection, healthcare covers a range of topics that transcend special interests or hobbies and are applicable to the general population. Healthcare is everywhere, from reality television to the daily news, and magazines will be following suit, dedicating plenty of their pages to the subject in 2012.
Beauty & Personal Care – Looking good can be a constant pursuit, and luckily for those seeking resources on the topic, there will be plenty of editorial content to feed their need. Beauty & Personal Care includes cosmetics, cosmetic surgery and physical fitness, all topics that will receive a great deal of attention throughout the coming year.
Vacations & Travel – Absent from the Top Five in 2011, all signs point to vacations and travel making a comeback in 2012. Whether readers are looking for content about places to go, places to stay when they arrive, things to do while there, or the best way to get to travel to their destination, they’re certain to find stories to guide them in the coming year.
Shopping – After a difficult couple of years, retailers will be thrilled to hear that stories about shopping will be plentiful over the next twelve months. Covering everything from clothes and apparel to home furnishings and gifts, shopping will make its way back onto the pages of magazines and into the forefront of reader’s minds, effectively pushing other lifestyle topics out of the top spots for 2012.
By Greg Perry, MyMediaInfo
Most public relations professionals who have spent more than five years in the industry can share stories about the importance of internal public relations. Most of these tales will tell of how the presence of having a formal internal PR plan saved their jobs or how the lack of a plan cost them their job. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for those who can learn from my mistake, my story falls into the latter category.
My first professional public relations job was at a rural hospital. I was right out of school so I spent most of my time building media lists the old fashioned way, with books and spreadsheets, reading tiny weekly newspapers for mentions of the hospital, and building relationships with reporters. My team and I were very successful, and it especially helped that we were constantly chatting up these small town reporters at Lions Club Events, American Legion luncheons and Chamber of Commerce meetings.
After a few months of being on a first name basis with reporters, the frequency of the positive stories about our hospital in their papers increased, and the opportunity to answer to negative stories was almost always offered before the stories went to press. We would proudly clip these stories from the papers (with scissors), mount them on fancy card stock paper, place them in a binder, and pass the binder around the department. Our backs were constantly sore from all the slapping that ensued as we celebrated how much heavier the clip book was that year than the year before.
Then the lean times came. The CEO of our hospital was a very nice, family oriented man, so when the layoffs began, he would always break the news himself rather than sending a random human resources representative to tell you that your job was no longer necessary. When my turn came, he sat four of us down to break the news. I was 24, a newlywed, and had a small child. I had never been laid off before. He explained that they needed to make cuts. He said that, “during lean times, we don’t cut doctors and nurses; we cut the folks that do the birthday parties.” I’ll never forget that line. How could he think that all that we did for the hospital was throw birthday parties?
At first, I did what most 24 year olds would do. I threw myself a pity party and blamed the evil CEO in the big office down the hall for daring to insult my PR genius. Clearly he wasn’t smart enough to realize how heavy that clip book was. After stewing for a few days, I came to realize that this was not his fault, it was ours. We had failed to present anything to the departments that controlled our budgets that would quantify our existence and our value to the hospital. We did not so much as even drop the clip book on his desk so he could hear how loud the thud was. We simply assumed that he knew those great stories about the hospital didn’t magically appear in the paper.
Eleven years later, I have the knowledge that hindsight can give you, along with the tools that are available to help prevent this year’s 24 year-olds from making the mistake we made.
The bottom line is that if you do not have a formal internal public relations plan that is specifically geared toward educating your company or clients your value, the people in charge of your career will make one for you without your input or expertise. That’s what happened to me. Without any evidence to the contrary presented, it was simply assumed that the PR department’s value to the organization was minimal.
Fast forward twelve years and every time I present MyMediaInfo’s solutions and show our media analytics tools, I think back to that conversation 12 years ago. I’m not sure if a report on influencers, impressions, publicity value, tone, share of voice or prominence of key messages would have saved my job, but I am sure that I was never asked to justify my existence, and my short career went down without a fight. And in the end, I’m thankful for what the experience taught me. I also hope that they found someone else to throw the birthday parties.
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worries, fears and questions of a parent are never ending, especially for single parents who may be struggling to fulfill the role of both parents. The parents on our list have experienced it all and are happy to share the lessons they have learned. They bring you their insights and answers to all the parenting questions that keep you up all night.
